About three years ago, there was an old age contest in one of the
colored churches of North Little Rock. Sister Hatchett was considered
the oldest, Fannie Dorum next. Sarah Jane Patterson was among those
considered in the nineties also. It is very probable that all of these
three are ninety or more. Stories of Dorum and Patterson are already in,
and interview with Hatchett will be completed soon.
This paper fails to record Fannie Dorum's accent with any approach to
accuracy. She speaks fairly accurately and clearly and with a good deal
of attention to grammaticalness. But she pronounces all "er" ending as
"uh"; e.g., nigguh, cullud, fathuh, mothuh, m(o)stuh, daughtuhs.
There are a number of variations from correct pronunciation which I do
not record because they do not constitute a variation from the normal
pronunciation; e.g., "wuz" for "was", "(e)r" for "[e]r".
The slave pronunciation of "m(o)ster" is more nearly correct than the
normal pronunciation of "m(a)ster." Frequent pronunciations are marse,
marsa, m(o)ssa, m(o)stuh, and m(a)ssa.
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Silas Dothrum
1419 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 82 or 83
Occupation: Field hand, general work
[May 31 1939]
[HW: Don't Know Nothin']
"The white people that owned me are all dead. I am in this world by
myself. Do you know anything that a man can put on his leg to keep the
flies off it when it has sores on it? I had the city doctor here, but he
didn't do me no good. I have to tie these rags around my foot to keep
the flies off the sores.
"I worked with a white man nineteen years--put all that concrete down
out there. He is still living. He helps me a little sometimes. If it
weren't for him I couldn't live. The government allows me and my wife
together eight dollars a month. I asked for more, but I couldn't get it.
I get commodities too. They amount to about a dollar and a half a month.
They don't give any flour or meat. Last month they gave some eggs and
those were nice. What they give is a help to a man in my condition.
"I don't know where I was born and I don't know when. I know I am
eighty-two or eighty-three years old. The white folks that raised me
told me how old I was. I never saw my father and my mother in my life. I
don't know nothin'. I'm Just on old green man. I don't know none of my
kin people--father, mother, uncles, cousins, nothin'. When I found
myself the white people had me.
"That was right down here in Arkansas here on old Dick Fletcher's farm.
There was a big family of them Fletchers. They took me to Harriet
Lindsay to raise. She is dead. She had a husband and he is dead. She had
two or three daughters and they are dead.